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babewiththepower.bsky.social · @babewiththepower.bsky.social@bridge.neodb.net

Rated While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence 8/10

I picked this up as a choice by a local book club. It's great to read a book that I'd otherwise not have gone to and picked on my own. I was about 2/3 of the way through it when I decided to glance at some Goodreads reviews and, as often happens, I somewhat regretted that. Negative comments that came up were criticisms of what the reader viewed as tone. Being someone sensitive to and often a target of "the tone police" that always automatically gets my dander up. The "tone" readers picked up on was what I would describe as thinking the writing lacked emotion and elaboration of the writer's personal feelings.<br/><br/>I disagree to an extent. In fact, in the back quarter? or so of the book she clearly explains that she had trouble with that very thing. A struggle between meanderings about her personal thoughts and memories. Maybe a lot of that was lost in the edit, but I can understand an editor wanting to "trim the fat" and build something coherent out of writing like that. I'd think it was emotion that would lead to that type of writing. The other thing Kissinger mentions is that she's spent a lifetime making sense of the mental illnesses in her family through her career, through journalism, and trying to make a difference with it. Classic journalism was very much "just the facts" and I can see that that's how she ended up shaping this story.<br/><br/>There is so much detail. How else is some sort of cohesion going to happen with so many things happening that were explanations of what went on in her family? I appreciated all of the stories about her parents and her siblings. I don't think she was cold about it, but I would think certainly after some 50? 60? years of it, it can be exhausting and at a certain point it would be repetitive. If you can't imagine and have some empathy for the writer losing 2 siblings and dealing with several other close family members all struggling with their mental health without being told over and over her feelings, I don't know what to say.<br/><br/>I definitely also appreciated that in telling their stories and in pointing out this fact, it was clear how much has changed in her lifetime with regards to mental health. Social attitudes and therefore medical treatment has changed so much in the last 50 years. There's still much that needs to change and improve, but sticking relatives in the attic/basement or some horror-show asylum pretending it's not happening are (hopefully) in the past and talking about struggles without fear or shame are huge strides forward.

#book

Published 2026-08-18 17:58 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere